Returning to the house, we took a sample of the water from the well for analysis. When I asked the old lady (I made the mistake of calling her Mrs. Noble) to boil the bottle and the cork first, I think they both decided I was mad.
“Now,” said I, as I put the sample in my pocket, “if this water gets a clean bill of health, what do you want for the place?”
“What’ll you give me?” said Milt.
“Look here,” said I, “I’m a Yankee, too, and I can answer one question with another just as long as you can. What do you expect me to give you?”
The old man spat meditatively, and wiped his whiskers with the back of his hand.
“Pitt Perkins got $500 an acre for his place,” said he.
“They get $500 a square foot on Wall Street in New York,” I replied.
“And ’twon’t grow corn, neither,” said Milt, with his nearest approximation to a grin.
“It pastures lambs,” put in the professor.
But Milt didn’t look at him. He gazed meditatively at the motor. “So thet contraption cost $4,000, did it?” he mused, as if to himself, “and ’twon’t drop a calf, neither. How’d $8,000 strike you?”